“How could that not have occurred to you? With all due respect, you were going to take a free holiday from someone you consider a friend—but obviously you have a different definition of a friend than the commissioner. You knew that they had a lobbying registry, that they were set up to lobby the government. How could it not have occurred to you that that might not have been okay?”
Justin’s reply? Direct. Precise. No-nonsense.
“The fact is we work, ahh . . . [long pause] Sorry, let me just try to reorder—reorder the thoughts. We, um, worked with, ah, the, ah, lobby, conflict of interest commissioner, ahh, on a regular basis, on a broad range of issues when the issues come up. On this issue of a family vacation with a personal friend, um, it wasn’t considered that there would be an issue there. Obviously—obviously there was a mistake.”
The unimpeachable Justin Trudeau, ladies and gentlemen!